Sunday, 22 December 2013

Hi Everyone,
Just one last very quick post to show you my last of my 12 tags of Christmas as inspired by the Funkie Junkie herself Linda Coughlin. This challenge is sponsored by her on line shop The Funkie Junkie Boutique and the rules are shown here. The inspiration from Linda's Tag is oh so easy to spot - of course it is the lovely clean white and gold colours that she has used.
The Merry Christmas is one of several that Anne kindly cut for me when she came down for a visit in October. I think it is a memory box die. All I did with this is dab it all over with versamark and emboss it with gold ep. I stamped several small stars and gold embossed them the same.

The Christmas letters were filled with glue and sprinkled with rock candy distress glitter, and then the edges were glittered with frantage Champagne crushed glass. A little bow with gold organza finished it off a treat.

All that leaves me to do now is to wish everyone a

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Thank you for your comments & visits, Look forward to seeing you in 2014

I am back once again with my penultimate post for 2013 to show off another tag to be entered into the 12 tags of Christmas challenge as inspired by the Funkie Junkie herself Linda Coughlin. This challenge is sponsored by her on line shop The Funkie Junkie Boutique and the rules are shown here. I went a little out of sequence along the way and today's instalment is my take on number 6 which can be seen Here. Linda gave me inspiration with the stitching of the papers on her tag, the number 25 and a lovely golden bow.

Fortunately I had my sewing machine out on the bench from finishing another project last week and I had lots of different scraps of papers which I just ripped down to size, inked with vintage photo DI and sewed onto a Kraft tag with a running stitch. The little postcard came from a batch that Anne had embossed for me, this was one that did not quite catch the edges so I chopped it down to a smaller size, inked and distressed to make the emboss pop out, and stamped a post mark onto it. I wrote a little note to Santa onto the Postcard, overlapped a couple more pieces of different papers, and swapped my stitch onto a zig zag to sew them down onto the tag.

I zig zagged a length of twine across these papers as I knew I wanted to use twine on the top of the tag also. The gold bow came from a box of chocolates last Christmas and has been stuck in my stash since then. When I saw the one on Linda's tag it reminded me I had one similar. The star in the centre was a plain wooden one which I painted gold and wrapped red thread around it. A little star embellishment was added to the centre to give a little sparkle.

Next came the number 25 which was just asking for a backing of burlap to tie in with the twine, a little more stamping with the postmark stamp and I thought I was done, but not quite. I was turning my dial on my sewing machine back to straight stitch and went the wrong way which brought me to this star embroidery stitch I didn't even know I had! it was like I was meant to find it, so as you can see I sewed some stars top and bottom, I think they look pretty.

So there we are, one more to go, and then we can look forward to the two Thank you tags Linda is going to post for us to play with over Christmas and the New Year, (well we can't have idle hands for to long can we?). I will be back later with my last tag Number 12.

Thank you for dropping by, and a special Thank you to those of you who are leaving me such lovely comments I am really touched by them.

Saturday, 21 December 2013

Hi Everyone,Here again as promised with Tag number 11 of Linda's 12 tags of Christmas Challenge. Linda's original tag 11 that gives us such wonderful inspiration can be seen HERE
from which I used the snowy trees as my starting point. I don't have the lovely tree stamp that Linda used or the snowflakes on the edge die (that looks so nice), but, when I was visiting Anne last week, I spotted this tree emboss folder in her stash and she very kindly let me emboss yet another tag whilst I was there. I had an idea in mind and I set about colouring the sky with faded jeans and stormy sky, evergreen bough on the trees followed by a little shading with a charcoal pencil on one side and gathered twigs in and around the tree base, all was going well, then I realised I was supposed to be doing snowy trees! duh! so, I painted gesso on the other edge of the trees and on the base of the tag to start my snowy forest scene. It was at this point that I realised that the thing I seemed to have which would look right in this vast space of white was the deer die cut I had used in tag 2. He looked ok, but as he was a leaping deer it sort of looked wrong for the tag, so this went on the back burner for a couple of days whilst I thought, and thought, and thoght! Today I had a bit of inspiration. I felt the snow was to flat and needed addressing, so I roughly painted areas of the gesso with Reeves iridescent medium. I have never used it before and it has been lying around my paint drawer for ages (another sale find I think), anyway not even sure if it dryed flat or textured I took the chance.

As you can see by the photo it is textured and glistens like fresh snow, I was so happy with this finish. I then had a bit of a shrinkie frenzy! I used the Bigz Winter Wonder die and white shrink plastic for Mr Snowman and the snowflakes. Inktense pencils were used on Mr Snowman for colour. The simple saying sentiment was Peace on Earth, but when I put Mr snowman in place, there was still a large space of white that was making him look very lonely. I had a look around my stash, but nothing came to mind, then when clearing my desk up later, I spotted a large robin stamp on a set I had been using for the last tag for the cherub. He was huge, much bigger than Mr Snowman but I thought he might just be the perfect size once shrunk. I stamped the robin onto shrink plastic using brown stayzon and coloured his little red breast before shrinking him down and bingo he was perfect, the sentiment however wasn't. I thought some more and spotted the hello friend sentiment and it just made me smile. Now Mr snowman looks like he is politely touching his hat to greet the sweet little robin who has just landed near him. I hope you like.

Remember if you still want to be in with a chance of winning one of the three random drawn gift certificates to spend at The Funkie Junkie Boutique You need to complete all 12 tags by Jan. 8th, anyone who completes the challenge on time and meets all the requirements will get a 10% coupon . In addition to this there will also be two other bonus tags published on 21st and 28th December to keep us busy and these must be Thank you tags with a winter theme, complete these two tags also and the coupon will be 15% off. But you must meet all the requirements shown here at the Funkie Junkie blog for each and every post.

Thank you as always for popping over, I will be back with my last two tags of Christmas tomorrow after which I will take a well earned break for a few days. So ta ta for now see you soon.
Hugs Mo x

Hi Everyone,
I am here again show you my version of tag number 8 for the 12 tags of Christmas Challenge as inspired by Linda Coughlin and sponsored by the Funkie Junkie Boutique details of which can be found HERE don't forget though that Linda has very kindly extended the deadline till 8th January.

Lindas original number 8 can be viewed by clicking on this link HEREMy inspiration for this one came from the snow flakes and the script stamping that Linda had used on her background. As you can see I have used a Best Creations background paper which already had a beautiful glittered snowflake on one part of it which was to good not to use. I stamped this with a cling music stamp using archival cornflower, then stamped the script on a contrasting paper using broken china DI. The Cherub was then stamped and embossed in silver onto this, cut out and layered. The Tim Holtz Peace stamp which was from the same set as the Cherub (cant remember the name sorry!) was stamped embossed with clear, then inked around the edges to co-ordinate. I went around the edges of the tag with Cosmic Shimmer Luna Silver vintage mica flakes. (Obviously before I attached the Cherub & sentiment), and finished with a silver ribbon.
I will be back very shortly with number 11 which I am sure will make you smile when you see it.
BBFN be back soon.
Hugs Mo x

Thursday, 19 December 2013

Hi Everyone,
As you can see on my last post, I have completed my 12 tags of 2013, however I am still on my mission to complete my version of the 12 tags of Christmas as inspired by the Funkie Junkie herself Linda Coughlin. This challenge is sponsored by her on line shop The Funkie Junkie Boutique and the rules are shown here. Linda gave us inspiration with Tag 7 and here is my version.
As you know Linda asks us to let her know which elements gave us inspiration and with this tag it was all about Joy and Poinsettias.

I spent a Crafty day with my friend Anne last week, and used her Poinsettia emboss folder to emboss the tag. I used Vintage Photo all over the tag which highlighted the Poinsettias beautifully. I then used Tattered Angels gold mist to give it a shimmer.

I loved the Vintage Photo distress glitter that Linda used and I did my leaves the same way. I used some frantage mica flakes in the lower left hand corner which complimented the leaves. You can see a small piece of linen ribbon here too which was excess when I trimmed the bow at the top.

wanted to use a little more red in my tag to and so I did my Poinsettia pretty much the same as I did for my December tag which if you missed it is Here using clearly for art covered in Frosted film, run through a die and coloured with archival ink.

The tag is ribbed Kraft card and I used an Indigo Blu stamp for to the World which was stamped with archival and clear embossed. You might just spot a little tickle of treasure gold in there too.

I knocked the dust of my Cricut machine to cut the JOY letters from core card. I mounted them onto Kraft card, gave them some depth with the white essentials pen and again a tickle of treasure gold. The little red stars arrived in a Christmas card from my Brother and Sister in law, and I thought I could put them to good use. The first time they put them in a card years ago they were everywhere, and I was still finding them in June, but nowadays I am wiser and open the card more carefully. The tag was topped off with a mixed bow of brown organza and linen ribbon.

So there we have it another one done. I am glad Linda has extended the deadline to January 8th though as otherwise I would be running out of days to complete all 12. I must make a note to start in September next year instead of December, although knowing me it would not make the slightest difference as I am one of those people who think oh I've got loads of time and then the deadline is just around the corner without me realising. I will stop rabbiting on now and let you get back to the normality of Christmas preparations, how its going well.

I have taken a quick break from Christmas and tags to make a card to enter into the latest Indigo Blu Challenge which is Lest we forget-November for details click HERE. I seem to be making a habit of catching this challenge by the skin of my teeth, and this month is no different as the challenge closes in 24 hours.

Whenever we remember in November I always automatically think of the Poppy, so this was the obvious choice to use one of my favourite stamps. I did an ombre effect for the background card using distress stains, stamped the Poppy with black Versafine and coloured it with inktense pencils.﻿

I decided not mask off the poppy for the next bit but instead use one of the tiny background stamps without a block to gently stamp around the Poppy using memento London Fog. The sentiment was stamped onto a spellbinders die-cut and inked using the same colours as the background.

Wednesday, 18 December 2013

Thank you so much for the lovely comments on my recent posts and for taking the time to pay a visit this very busy time of year.

I have for you today my December Tag as led by the one and only Mr Tim Holtz as shown HERE

The background was first given a coat of Frayed Burlap distress ink all over the tag. The Rays stencil was placed over it and Frayed Burlap inked through it. A distress tool was used on the edges and these were inked with Walnut Stain.

I followed the technique pretty much as Tim did using the sparkle film over the Clearly for art and die-cutting it with the tattered Poinsettia Bigz die, Colouring them with Red Geranium and Fern Green archival and shaping when warm. The only additional stage I did was to put the flowers into the Poinsettia Texture Fades folder and embossed them before colouring and shaping, You can just see the pattern on the close up photo below. The centre was given a rub of treasure gold, and held together with a brad. The white specks are flicks of Picket Fence DP.

I did not have the sentiment that Tim used so I went with one from the simple sayings set. The number 25 was covered in glossy accents and then sprinkled with Rock Candy distress glitter. One of my new additions to my stash is the Linen ribbon which I have used under the sentiment and pulled out slightly under the 25 and on the top of the tag just to throw in a bit more texture.

So there we are number 12 all done and dusted. I am really pleased that I have managed to complete all 12 tags this year and look forward to see what Tim has in store for us in 2014. I am sure I won't be on my own.

Sunday, 15 December 2013

Blue Christmas only in title not in how I feel, I feel great to be well on a roll with the 12 tags FJ style and today is no exception as I bring you my version of number 9. To see my inspiration for this tag which was the beautiful blue colours, see Linda's original here at The Funkie Junkie .

The background for this card started off with me sponging through Tim's splatters stencil with picket fence distress paint, the intention was to have these as a resist, then for some reason I forgot I had to use the distress inks to get this effect and instead I swooshed the tag through a blue mix of distress stains, needless to say they did not resist quite as much as I had hoped, but anyway I carried on. The next thing was to add a little brown so I went around the edges with Walnut stain, but was a bit heavy handed and made it too brown, so had to lift the colour off with water.

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I decided to us white die-cut flowers (Creatables) to lift it a little and silver glittered leaves (tattered pine cone) I then used a mix of faded jeans and broken china DS on a mat swooshed through some paper and die-cut them with two rose swirl dies that were different sizes and made them into flowers.

I used perfect pearls on the tips of some of the flowers and around the bottom of the tag.

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The sentiment is one I have had for a while, I think it was Crafty Individuals and it was stamped onto white card stock cut with Spellbinders die, inked with Faded Jeans and mounted onto music paper and glittered card cut with the same die set. I bordered the outer mount with perfect pearls.

If you want to be in with a chance of winning one of the three random drawn gift certificates to spend at The Funkie Junkie Boutique You need to complete all 12 tags by Jan. 8th, anyone who completes the challenge on time and meets all the requirements will get a 10% coupon . In addition to this there will also be two other bonus tags published on 21st and 28th December to keep us busy and these must be Thank you tags with a winter theme, complete these two tags also and the coupon will be 15% off. But you must meet all the requirements shown here for each and every post.

Thank you as always for popping over at this very busy time of year, Hoping your Christmas preparations are going to plan (10 more sleeps).
Hugs
Mo x

Linda asks us to tell what part of her tag gave us inspiration when creating our own and with this one it was the Big man in Red himself Father Christmas. I do not own any Father Christmas stamps and was trying to find a really nice image to use amongst my papers when I remembered Astrid gave us some beautiful downloadable freebies a couple of weeks ago including this jolly fellow.

The background of the tag was simply distressed with Frayed Burlap, and the with the Harlequin stencil in place I inked through it again with Burlap. I distressed the edges & inked with Walnut stain.

I printed off the freebie Santa, mounted it onto chipboard, and then put a layer of Tim Holtz self adhesive frosted film over the top of it (although try as I might I could not get this to show up on the photo), this was then die cut into an oval shape. After distressing the edge of the oval I inked it with Walnut stain D.I. This was then mounted onto ribbed Kraft card which had been die cut with a Spellbinders labels die and the edges inked. The metal Father Christmas embellishment was from my stash, I picked a pack of 6 of these up for £1 in the summer, they were just in the bottom of a sale basket and was to good a bargain to miss. The embellishment was black lettering and I changed it to red using Festive Berries distress paint. The foliage is simply green coordination's core card die cut with the tattered pine cone die and the edges inked with burlap.
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I loved the Crinoline Poinsettia that Linda had used on her tag and as I had been given some of this lovely fabric a while ago now from my lovely friend Anne I thought now was a perfect time to use it. I used the Spellbinders Poinsettia die and coloured it with Festive Berries distress stain. The centre was made up of a punched Kraft snowflake and another embellie from my stash.

The tag was completed by a row of lovely lace which I coloured with Frayed Burlap.

Wednesday, 11 December 2013

Hi Everyone,
I have yet another offering for you with my mission to complete all 12 Christmas tags FJ style in the challenge inspired by Linda Coughlin aka The Funkie Junkie. This is my 5th Tag but the inspiration for this one from Linda's Tag 10 on show HERE as the title probably tells you is the Holly and the Ivy.

I do not yet own the new Tim Holtz Holly stencil unfortunately because this would have made life much easier with this tag. The background was started with me putting over the Special Touch Holly mask over the tag and I distressed it with Frayed Burlap, and then outlined the holly leaves, branches and berries with a fine pen with the mask still in place. Because I had used a mask and not a stencil, I had to paint in the leaves and berries, I used Hey Pesto & Blood Orange Fresco paints for this which worked really well because with both these colours being translucent, they did not obliterate my outlining. I used Gathered twigs DP for the branches. To get more dimension I went over the berries with glossy accents

The Frayed burlap was looking a bit cold for the effect I wanted so I warmed the background and edges up with a little Festive Berries distress ink

I used some lovely water colour music paper that I picked up from a recent visit to my local Paperchase shop, in the areas around the Holly. The ornate frame was cut from mount board and coloured with festive berries DS before being given a coat of glossy accents and distress glitter. When dry I threaded some silk leaf ribbon through the frame.

I could not resist the temptation to write The Holly and the Ivy within the frame area before I attached the frame using silicone glue. The sentiment is of course the wonderful simple sayings set stamped in black archival and surrounded by festive berry frame. I attached a small red twine bow onto a little wooden heart and popped a couple of small silk leaves under it to finish.

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If you want to be in with a chance of winning one of the three random drawn gift certificates to spend at The Funkie Junkie Boutique You need to complete all 12 tags by Jan. 8th, anyone who completes the challenge on time and meets all the requirements will get a 10% coupon . In addition to this there will also be two other bonus tags published on 21st and 28th December to keep us busy and these must be Thank you tags with a winter theme, complete these two tags also and the coupon will be 15% off. But you must meet all the requirements shown here for each and every post.

Thank you as always for taking the time to pop over and take a look at my little blog and for your lovely comments

Tuesday, 10 December 2013

Here I am again with my efforts to play catch up with The Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas challenge set by Linda Coughlin. And this dead line for this challenge, has just been extended to January 8th 2014. Linda is adding a two further tags for us to have a play with and the theme is Thank You. Everyone who successfully completes all 14 will get a 15% discount coupon to spend with the sponsors The Funkie Junkie Boutique. Plus three gift certificates will be awarded in a random draw. For full details hop on over HERE. Here is Linda;s original Tag 4 and the elements that inspired me from this one was the layers of different textures, metals, fabrics,papers. Here is my version.

I started with 3 background papers, the red glitter patterned paper on the right which I distressed on the edges. Music print in the centre and white textured on the right which has been stained with forest moss distress stain. The green paper was pricked with a pokey tool, given false stitching with a fine black pen and then old paper distress crackle scraped along the edge. I die-cut the poinsettia from matching red paper and gave it a metal brad centre. The black and white diamond strip is one of Tim Holtz tissue tapes.﻿

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On to the fabric elements I have a strip of cream ribbon embroidered with red Merry Christmas lettering and matching stitching down the edge. On the other side of the music papers I added a strip of the beautiful lace which I thought stood out really nicely against the green. I loved the burlap squares that Linda had put on her tag and did the same on mine. I wanted to add a few metal elements and found these metal alphabet discs in my stash that I picked up from a car boot sale years ago and had not got around to using them.

I put 3 nail head embellishments to separate the Merry Christmas, and then finished off the tag with 3 bakers twine bows each with a little jingle bell.﻿

So there we have it, 4 down and 8 to go! I am loving doing these tags, they are such fun and each one is so different. I am loving having a good rummage through my stash for different materials and have been turning up things I have not seen for years, like the metal discs used on this tag, surely that isn't normal - is it?

Sunday, 8 December 2013

Hi Everyone,
Here I am again with my Third installment inspired by the 12 Tags of Christmas created by Linda at the Funkie Junkie. If you want to give it a go, you can find all the details (& rules) Here and there is a prize sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique you will need to get a wiggle on though as we only have until 22nd December to get all 12 completed YIKES! Tune in to the Funkie Junkie Blog to see my inspiration which is Linda's Tag 3, and here is mine.

The tag shows the 3 kings making their long journey following the brightest star in the sky to deliver their gifts of gold frankinsense & myrr. We Three Kings was one of my favourite carols when I was little so I decided to go along with this as my inspiration.

I used Faded Jeans and Picket Fence distress stains to swoosh the tag through a couple of times and then when dried I distressed the edges and used Gathered Twigs DI here and there to blend the colours together. For the next layer I stamped script with archival Cobalt blue. The big star is off a Creative Expressions plate and this was embossed with silver. The smaller stars and the centre of the big star are adhesive gems.

Here you see the 3 Kings on their Camels, this is an Indigo Blu stamp from their Joy to the World set. I thought I was going to have an easy life as the 3 kings are all in a row on this stamp, however they were far to big to fit on the tag nicely. My next idea was to stamp them onto shrink plastic, but I did not like the effect. I decided finally that the only was I was going to do this was to stamp them, cut them out, and then overlap them & layer up. I am quite pleased with the way they cam out, but it was quite fiddly. The layer under the feet of the camels is Frantage Age Ivory embossing enamel, and you can just catch a glimpse of another textured layer I put on the base of the tag, this is gold angel fibre.

Here is a close up of the Noel sentiment in the centre of the tag. The letters were die-cut from Kraft card using the Once upon a Time decorative strip and the edges were inked with Faded Jeans. I re-inked the edges of the tag using Black Soot DI and attached some twine to the top.

I cant tell you what fun I am having making these tags which incidentally are going to be turned into my Christmas cards when I have completed all 12.

Friday, 6 December 2013

Hi Everyone,Here I am again with my second instalment inspired by the 12 Tags of Christmas created by Linda at the Funkie Junkie. You will find all the details HERE and there is a prize sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique if you want to give it a go we have until 22nd December to get all 12 completed, so why not join in, you never know you may be a winner. To see Linda's Tag 2 click HEREThis is my version of Tag 2

I was inspired by the whole winter country scene on Linda's Tag that reminds me so much of walks in one of our local National Trust estates on a cool frosty morning. The Deer meandering in and out of the trees in the woods and dashing across the path in front of you. If it is quiet and you are lucky they come right up close as they are grazing, beautiful animals.

I started this tag by mixing Frayed Burlap,Picket Fence and tarnished brass DS onto a mat and pulled the tag through it. The result was nice but a bit dark so I gave it another drag with just the picket fence. I lost some of the shimmer of the gold so then I spritzed it with Tattered Angels iridescent glimmer mist (had this years and its still spraying without clogging up).

I used Potting soil archival to stamp the country scene in the centre which is a one from Creative Expressions on the Christmas Post Plate. I then masked this off and over stamped various sizes of trees around the scene with 1st & 2nd generation to get a variation in colours.

Mr Stag is a Creatable die which I embossed with Ranger sticky embossing Powder and used gilding flakes over the top. I gave him a round eye with a little black gem but it looked wrong as deer eyes are oval shaped so his eye is actually a heart shaped gem chopped in half with scissors. The sentiment stamp is from Crafty Individuals and the star stamp was a freebie from a Craft magazine. The stars were cut free hand and edged with gold emboss.

I used Frantage Champagne Crushed Glass on some of the corners and edges to give it a bit of extra sparkle against the misty neutrals of the background, and a little bit of muslin and lace completed the effect.

So there we are 2 down 10 to go Thank you for your visit and do pop back very soon for the next instalment.

Thursday, 5 December 2013

Hope you are all safe out there following the awful weather we have encountered today. Welcome to my new followers, great to have you aboard.
I have been admiring with great envy all the beautiful tags that have been appearing on the blogs for the inspirational 12 tags of Christmas challenge sponsored by Linda's Funkie Junkie Boutique Click Here to Lindas original tag. I have been busy with workshops which are coming to an end this weekend and thought I was far to late to join in, then I thought lets give it a go and see if I can do it. So here is my tag number one for my tag Marathon Tagathon.

I love this blackboard effect, and was inspired by the thought of watching crisp white snowflakes gently fluttering down in the dark winter sky, collecting on the roof tops and window sill before melting and transforming into beautiful icicles. I started by stamping some small snowflakes on the black tag using cotton white stayzon, then stamped and embossed the top icicles. You might just be able to see a flurry of small white snowy spots that I did using chunky white frantage. The top & side edges were inked with versamark and embossed with white e/p. I hand cut the bottom icicles, and die-cut the snowflakes from white cardstock , these all had a coat of glossy accents and sprinkled with rock candy distress glitter. The flourish was die cut from CS too. The little snowflake in the bottm right hand corner is the same die as the big one one on the top but cut from shrink plastic. I used the chalk technique for the Snow topper as Tim used for his November tags. To finish I die-cut a little red poinsettia and mounted it onto a red twine bow and a little piece of burlap.

These two close ups give you a better view of the chunky white frantage snow flurry and the little shrink plastic snowflake, Poinsettia, and distress glitter.

Wednesday, 4 December 2013

Firstly I would like to say a huge THANK YOU to all who sent messages of Congratulations for my November Tag being announced as one of the Winners on Sir Tim's Blog last weekend. I have to tell you I have only just come down to earth and everyone I have met who is Crafty minded has been laughing at the great big grin I have had on my face all week. I am eagerly awaiting some new goodies to arrive this week then I can get on with my December Tag.

Just wanted to show you what myself and the ladies on my class were having fun with last weekend over at Crab Apple Crafts where the ladies were altering one of the lovely Andy Skinner Clocks from Tando and putting their own twist on them using a few techniques with acrylic paints, crackle glaze and stamps.

Believe it or not at least two of these five ladies had not ventured into the paint techniques before but I bet you cannot tell which ones they are looking at these ones, Big thumbs up for you all ladies.

Sunday, 1 December 2013

Its the 1st of December and what do we look forward to on the 1st of December ?? Oh yes I know we all start heading over to Mr. Tim's Blog to see what wonderful new tags he has for us, but apart from that its December and that can only mean its Christmas count down time with our Advent Calendars.

Now some of the ladies were taking the mickey out of me last week on the retreat a Forest Hills that was organised by Crab Apple Crafts because all the bits that I designed for them was inky and painty, messy...... I don't do many projects using just paper, so I made a real big effort this week to do a set of Advent tags using just card, papers ribbons and embellies.
These tags were inspired by a tutorial given by Helen over at the Craft Project you can see it by clicking HERE . I do hope the ladies like my efforts, at the very least they will give colour to my hallway as i hang them up one by one.

AND THERE'S MORE.....

I made this card with the same paper pack as the tags, and I got the inspiration for this card from one that was made by Linda over at the Funkie Junkie to see Linda's card click HERE. I had recently bought the Window die and I used it on my October Tag HERE and I wanted to use it with a Christmas Scene stamp so when I saw Linda's this was just how I had imagined it would look.

This Poinsettia is a Creatables Die I have had a couple of years now but still love the effect. The leaves are cut from another creatables die which is part of the flower fantasy set. It looks like I have used my sewing machine on the edges but actually I cheated a bit by piercing the holes with my pokey tool and drawing in the stiches with a black Micron Pen.

I love these tiny Poinsettia (yet another Creatables) they compliment the larger one so well. Here you see the stitching and distress on the edges a little better.

I have taken the plunge and bought my very first pot of glitter (many of my friends will be checking that sentence again!) I have been so convinced by some of the amazing creations I have seen over the last few weeks using the new distress glitters I decided to give it a go. The twinkle on the window is the result. As Tim would say it looks 'Pretty Cool'. The sentiment of course is from the simple sayings set. I was going to leave the scene quite plain but then could not resist bringing a little colour into it by colouring up the dresses on the carol singers and the baubles on the tree.

Hope everyone is enjoying their own individual Christmas preparations. Thank you for visiting and please feel free to leave your comments, I love to read them.